Australian author Malla Nunn's debut novel A BEAUTIFUL PLACE TO DIE was among my top reads for 2010.It won the 2009 Sisters in Crime (Australia) Davitt Award for Best Adult Crime Novel, and was shortlisted in 2010 for both an Edgar Award and for a Macavity Award for Best First Novel
It is set in 1952 in South Africa against the background of new apartheid legislation that classified people into racial groups on the basis of colour and set up segregated residential areas.
A white man's body has been found in deep country, in the river that separates South Africa from Mozambique. The body floats face down within reach of the river's edge on the South African side. Some kaffir boys found the body, and now it is being guarded by a nineteen year old Afrikaner constable. Three Afrikaner men, built like rugby players, stand a little way off, waiting for the investigating team from Johannesburg to arrive. For the dead man is their father, Captain Willem Pretorius, the local police chief. And the investigating "team" is Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper, sent out solo on the murder of a white police captain.
See my full review
This is the perfect book to choose if you are looking for an Australian crime fiction quality read.
4 comments:
Kerrie - I'm ashamed to say how long Malla Nunn's work's been on my TBR list *blush*. Thanks for the reminder that I must get on with it and read it.
Liked this so much that I assigned it for bookgroup last year.
Trying to think of an A book.. forgot about "A" for the Alphabet
Sounds like an interesting book. I'll have to add this to my wish list.
Mason
Thoughts in Progress
I liked Malla Nunn's second book, "Let the Dead Lie," and gave it as a holiday gift to a friend.
I keep meaning to read her first, and this will get me to put it on reserve at the library.
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